According to AAA, Thanksgiving is the busiest travel period of all American holidays, with Sunday and Monday after the holiday the busiest time to travel back home.

More than 80 million people are expected to travel, with 90% by car.

In Michigan, 2.3 million people are expected to travel over the next few days. Most will drive at least 50 miles to their destination.

Road departments in Southeast Michigan say they are watching the weather forecast closely as lake-effect snow and strong winds make their way into the region.

"We will watch very closely the bridge decks, in particular the ramps, freeway ramps, to see if we see any icing. We'll immediately get out and salt those. If we do, if we have accumulating snow, of course, we'll get out and plow," said Craig Bryson, senior communications manager of the Road Commission for Oakland County.

"We have a detailed plan for every time of day, every day of the week. The only thing it might affect is that, because it will be a holiday, there won't be rush hour traffic."

County officials say the plow trucks are loaded with salt and brine.

"We will pretreat the road with liquid brine. We're not doing that now because it's been raining, and if it does rain again, it'll just wash it off the road. But in dry conditions, when we get a good advance warning there's snow coming, we can go out and spray liquid brine on the roads," Bryson said.

Officials say drivers must stay at least 200 feet away from plow trucks. It's a rule that was put into law in Michigan last year.

Like in Oakland County, the Wayne County Department of Public Services's Road Maintenance Division spent Wednesday making sure the fleet of more than 100 plow trucks is ready.

"We want to make sure our drivers are and our operators are very safe. We want to make sure the motoring public around us is extremely safe as well." Scott Cabauatan, deputy director of the Wayne County Department of Public Services. 

"We'll deploy our crews in advance, before the snow actually hits the ground in the county and start treating the roadways, so that as it comes the roadways can already be treated and start to get wet and we don't get icy conditions," Cabauatan said.

Crews will be focused on clearing the most densely traveled roads, such as expressways.

"We have just over 100 snow routes, snow and ice routes here in the county. We will have a driver for each route and a truck for each route. So we'll have at least 100 trucks out there," Cabauatan said.

Experts recommend slowing down and giving yourself extra time to travel in snow or ice conditions, and to keep in mind that crews are also prepared for the possibility of more snow this weekend.